Passing
by Azara-Rayne18
Summary: Blaine's mom is Filipino. She had always assumed that Blaine would look like her, and is given a rude awakening when Blaine passes for white. One-shot, kind of angsty, some racial themes. Warning, some racism.


Mahal Anderson had always taken it for granted that her son would look Asian.

Mahal's mother had made that very prediction every day of Mahal's engagement. "You try to deny your heritage, marrying that _kano_," Nanay would say, "But the blood will out. Filipino blood is strong. You won't be having lily white babies, that's for sure."

Mahal would always smile vacantly, barely listening to her mother's sour warnings. She wasn't marrying Joe Anderson so that she could have lily white babies. He was handsome, of course, with his pale skin and thick, European feautures. But she'd met many Filipino men who were just as handsome in their own way. She was marrying him because his voice would catch on her name with a sort of shocked reverence, and he told her every day that she was the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen.

Their marriage was like something out of a fairy tale, Mahal thought. She was only eighteen when she married him, only nineteen when she began throwing up and missing periods and having strange cravings. Mahal was too happy to notice the scowls that followed her and her husband when they walked hand in hand down the street, the horror in her Nanay's voice when she realized that Mahal was really pregnant with a half-white baby.

The month before Mahal was to deliver, her older sister Belen gave birth to a daughter. Belen had made a respectable marriage to a man of Filipino heritage, and Nanay had praised every inch of her new granddaughter. "See her sweet almond eyes, Mahal?" Nanay said proudly, "See her precious little round cheeks? This is just as you and your sister looked when you were born."

Mahal beamed, pressing a hand to where her son was stirring inside her.

A month later, when the labor was finished and tiny Blaine was cleaned and laid down beside her, Mahal stared into her son's face. She saw her skin, her eyes, her round cheeks. Blaine had cried out softly, calling for his mother, and Mahal pulled him close. "He's so beautiful," Joe had whispered, pressing one finger gently against his face, and Mahal could only agree.

And if his skin was a little lighter than her own, his thick black curls a little silker and his eyes a little rounder, Mahal never noticed.

...

"You look at those children," Nanay said furiously. Mahal looked over to where two year old Blaine was playing with his cousin. Blaine caught her eyes and gave her a toothy grin. "Leila looks like a proper child, your Blaine looks too pale. No one will believe he is yours."

"He's beautiful, Nanay," Mahal said. "There's nothing wrong with him."

But Nanay could not let it go, and finally, Mahal had to stop taking Blaine to visit. Blaine looked more like his father every day, and soon he would be able to understand the harsh things his Lola said about him.

...

"Come on, Blaine," Mahal said, pushing through the people in the mall.

It was two days 'til Christmas, and six year old Blaine was nothing but joy, bouncing after his mother and beaming around the candy cane in his mouth. Mahal had one last gift to buy; a silver watch for her husband. It was sold out nearly everywhere; the salesgirl at the last store had promised that it would be at Neiman Marcus in the Westerville Mall.

Mahal had found the mall okay, but she was having quite a bit of trouble locating the store. She hoisted her son up in her arms to avoid losing him and squinted at the crowd around her, searching for directions.

"Excuse me, ma'am?"

Mahal turned to see a thin, red headed girl with a bossy sort of face standing behind her. "Yes?"

"Do you need help finding his mother?" The girl asked.

At first, Mahal was confused. Then she followed the girl's eyes to the boy in her arms. Blaine was beaming, oblivious, scanning the crowd with excited interest.

"I'm his mother," Mahal said.

The girl turned red and stammered an apology. Mahal quickly waved it off, explaining that her son was mixed race and it was a little hard to see the Asian in him sometimes. She told the girl that it was perfectly fine.

She was not quite so kind when the store manager at Neiman Marcus asked the same question.

...

By the time Blaine was twelve years old, Mahal had accepted that her son passed as white.

She had become accustomed to the annoying but well meaning offers to help her locate her son's mother, the shock in teacher's faces when she showed up to discuss Blaine's grades, the polite disbelief in the voices of other parents when they said, 'Oh, you're Blaine's mother?'

Mahal tried not to focus on that. She had a beautiful son, a handsome husband, and a very comfortable life. Joe had done fairly well for himself in business, and every so often, he liked to celebrate this by taking his family out to a nice sit down dinner. Mahal enjoyed these dinners, enjoyed putting on a red silk dress and sitting with her family and feeling like an eighteen year old again.

"Oh, hey, how are you doing, Joe?"

Mahal looked up to see a blonde man with a rather smug face extending a hand.

"Russ!" Joe said in return, "This is Russell Fabray, one of my new co-workers. Where are the wife and girls?"

"Right over there," Russ nodded toward a back table, where Mahal could see a tall blonde woman and two daughters. "I'm so glad Lucy and Blaine are the same age, it's nice to have a built in acquaintance your first day at a new school." His eyes traveled to Mahal's face, "And who is this?"

"This is Mahal." Joe's voice held the same careful reverence it had when they were young fiancees.

Mahal saw something odd in Russ Farbray's expression, something a little less pleasant than disbelief. She thought she had imagined it until she came out of the bathroom and heard Mr. Fabray talking with his wife.

"Having an affair with the nanny; my goodness," Mrs. Fabray said. "And he's bringing his son into it, I didn't think Joe Anderson was capable of that."

"The world gets worse every day, honey," Mr. Fabray agreed.

Mahal wanted to scream at them, wanted to make some sort of snide comment about how their Lucy didn't look much like them either, but she simply walked back to the table where her husband and son sat, blissfully unaware what that woman was saying about their family.

"Is everything okay, Mama?" Blaine asked.

"Eat your broccoli," Mahal snapped. Blaine dipped his head down and did just that.

...

"I want to have another baby," Mahal said.

Joe stared back at her. almost comically confused. It was two o'clock in the morning, raining outside, and Mahal had just interrupted a fight to announce that she wanted another baby. "C'mon, what?"

"I want another baby."

"Why? We've always wanted one, you've always said you were happy with one..."

"Well, I'm not any more," Mahal said.

"What's going on?" Joe said. He fixed Mahal with that careful, sensitive, knowing stare that she hated.

"I want a baby that looks like me," Mahal said.

"... Blaine looks like you," Joe said. "He has your hair, he has your smile, he has your eyes-"

"But they're shaped like yours," Mahal interrupted, "His skin is just a shade closer to yours than mine, he has your eyebrows, your nose, every feature that matters-"

"Wait. Every feature that matters?"

"He looks white."

Joe was silent for a long moment, not sure what to say. "... And that's a bad thing?"

"Yes, it's a bad thing!" Mahal cried, "I've tried and tried not to let it bother me, but it is a bad thing. It's a bad thing that Blaine doesn't look the way my son should look. It's a bad thing that people always assume I'm his nanny, or his step-mother, or a stranger to him. I just want to be able to walk down the street with my child and have people see me and my child. And maybe if we have another baby, I can have that."

"Let me get this straight. You want to have another baby in hopes that it'll... look right?"

"Yes," Mahal said, "I know that it's better for Blaine if he looks like you. I know he'll live an easier life looking like you than he will looking like me, but this isn't how it's supposed to happen."

"This isn't how it's supposed to happen?" Joe asked, "Tell me, how was it supposed to happen? No, wait, how about I guess how it was... supposed to happen. I was supposed to be the one who's kid doesn't look the way my kid should look."

"Joe..."

"No, no, that's it, isn't it? I was supposed to be the one looking for myself in Blaine's face. I was supposed to be the one having random strangers come up to me and accuse me of stealing my own child. Because, remember, I'm a man. People would assume harsher things if they saw me carrying an Asian boy around a shopping mall."

"I didn't think about..."

"You didn't think about that?" Joe said, "I did. I thought about it every day we were dating. Because, unlike you, I didn't expect our child to look like me. I knew that if I married you our children would most likely look Asian, I knew that... and I didn't care. I didn't care because I loved you. I thought you were beautiful, and I thought any child we had together would be beautiful. And now, our son looks like me and it bothers you so much you need to replace him?"

"Dad?"

Mahal tore her gaze away from her husband's tear filled eyes and stared at her son. Blaine was standing in the doorway, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, his dark curls sticking up in every direction. "What are you doing up, baby?"

"Storm woke me up," Blaine said, "I was going to get a glass of milk... is everything okay?"

"Sure," Mahal said, going over to the fridge, "I'll get you that milk." Mahal watched Joe lean over to give Blaine a kiss on the forehead. She felt her husband leave the room, heard him walk down the hall toward the guest bedroom, knew that she would be sleeping alone tonight.

The next morning Joe apologized, told her he knew that it must be hard for her. Two months later, Mahal was pregnant again. She still thought Blaine was beautiful.

But she prayed that her next child would look Asian.


End file.
